Contest

The little man was holding something in one white-gloved hand. It looked like a grey wristwatch. Swain noticed that the small green light he had seen before was attached to the face of the wristwatch.

In addition to his completely white outfit, Swain saw that the little man wore an odd white skull cap that covered every part of his head, except for his face.

'Daddy, it looks like an eggshell,' Holly whispered.

'Shh.'

The little man in white stepped forward, so that he stood on the edge of the landing, his head a little higher than Swain's. He spoke perfect English, without trace of an accent.

'Hello. Welcome to the labyrinth. My name is Selexin and I am your guide.' He extended his little white hand. 'How do you do?'

Swain was still staring in disbelief at the little white man. He absently offered his own hand in return. The little man cocked his head.

'You have an interesting weapon,' he said, looking down at the telephone receiver in Swain's hand.

Swain glanced at the receiver. The spiral cord leading out from the phone had been cut several inches from where it met the hand-piece. He hadn't realised that he was still holding it. He quickly handed it to Holly, and shook hands awkwardly with the man in white.

'How do you do?' Selexin bowed solemnly.

'I'm gettin' there,' Swain said, warily. 'How about you?'

The man in white smiled earnestly and nodded politely. 'Oh, yes. Thank you. I am getting there, too.'

Swain hesitated. 'Listen, I don't know who or what you are, but...'

Holly wasn't listening. She was staring at the handpiece of the telephone. Without a spiral cord snaking back to a base unit, it looked like a cellular.

She examined the shortened phone cord. The cut at the end of it looked as if someone had snipped it with a pair of extremely sharp scissors. It was a clean cut. A perfectly clean cut. The wires inside the cord were not even frayed.

Holly shrugged and put the phone in her uniform pocket. Her own cellular phone, even if it didn't work. She looked back at the little man in white. He was talking to her father.

'I have no intention of harming you,' he was saying.

'You don't?'

'No,' Selexin paused. 'Well, not me.'

'Then if you don't mind, do you think you could tell us where we are and how the hell we can get out of here?' Swain said, taking a step up the stairs towards the landing.

The little man seemed shocked.

'Get out?' he said blankly. 'No one gets out. Not yet.'

'What do you mean no one gets out? Where are we?'

'You are in the labyrinth.'

Swain looked at the stairs around him. 'And where is this labyrinth?'

'Why, Contestant, this is Earth, of course.'

Swain sighed. 'Listen, ah...'

'Selexin.'

'Yes. Selexin,' Swain offered a weak smile. 'Selexin, if it's okay with you, I think my daughter and I would like to leave your labyrinth. I don't know what it is you're doing here, but I don't think we're going to be a part of it.'

Swain climbed the stairs and walked over to the door leading out from the landing. He was reaching for the door handle when Selexin snatched his hand away.

'Don't!'

He held Swain's hand away from the heavy wooden door. 'Like I said, no one gets out, yet. The labyrinth has been sealed. Look.'

He pointed to the gap between the door and its solid wooden frame. 'You see?'

Swain looked at the gap and saw nothing. 'No,' he said, unimpressed.

'Look closely.'

Swain leaned closer and peered at the inside of the door frame.

And then he saw it.

A tiny blue fork of electricity licked out from the gap between the door and the frame.

He only just saw it, but the sudden electric blue flash of light was unmistakable. Swain's eyes followed the door frame up its vertical edge. Every few inches there was a distinct flicker of the bright blue charge between the frame and the door.

It was the same on all four sides of the door.

Slowly, Swain stepped back onto the landing. He spoke as he turned, his voice soft and flat.

'What the hell are you doing here?'

----ooo0ooo------

In the atrium of the library, Officer Paul Hawkins was pacing back and forth in front of the Information Desk.

'I'm telling you, I saw it,' he said.

Parker was sitting with her feet up on the desk, chewing on a candy bar, now happily reading a back issue of Cosmopolitan.

'Sure you did.' She didn't even look up as she spoke.

Hawkins was angry. 'I said, I saw it.'

'Then go and check it out for yourself,' Parker offered him a dismissive wave. As far as she was concerned, Hawkins was green. Too young, too fresh and far too eager. And like every other rookie, always suspicious that the crime of the century was happening right under his nose.

Hawkins walked off toward the bookcases near the stairwell, mumbling to himself.

'What'd you say?' Parker called lazily from behind her magazine.

'Nothing,' Hawkins muttered as he stalked off. 'I'm going to see if it happens again.'

Parker looked up from her magazine to see Hawkins disappear through the stairwell doors. She shook her head.

'Rookie.'

Slowly, Hawkins climbed the wide marble stairs, peering around every turn, hoping to see it happen again. He leaned out over the banister and looked up into the shaft.

With the stairwell lights out, he knew he would barely be able to see beyond the first landing--

There was a light!

Up at the top.

One of the fluorescent lights up at the very top of the stairwell was on -- and it hadn't been on before.

Hawkins felt his adrenalin surge.

Someone was in here.

What should he do now? Get Parker? Yes, backup-- backup was good. No, wait. She wouldn't believe him. She hadn't before.

Hawkins peered back up into the shaft and saw the light. He took a hesitant step up the stairs.

And then it happened.

Hawkins immediately leapt back from the banister as a blinding stream of white light burst up through the central shaft of the stairwell, instantly illuminating everything around it.

Flecks of dust swirling around the hollow core of the stairwell suddenly came to life as the rising light struck them, creating a dazzling column of vertical white light.

Hawkins stared at it in awe. It was exactly what he had seen before -- a brilliant stream of white light pouring through the shaft of the stairwell.

And yet, somehow, this time it was different.

The source was different. This time, it wasn't coming from somewhere high up in the stairwell.

No, this time it was coming from below.